This Mario was one of many PAX East attendees playing their new Switch in line at the show. Breath of the Wild was on pretty much 100% of those systems.

The award for "cleverest Smash Bros. cosplay" goes to...

"These hovering cars are certainly a more efficient mode of transportation than my horse."

I've seen a lot of Mario cosplay at conventions over the years, but not too many Hammer Bros. suits. Also of note: His hip bag there has eight separate portable game systems.

We can only hope this liquid-cooled Donkey Kong PC case is discussed at this year's PC Gaming Show

If you told me just a month ago that Blaster Master would be a significant gaming property with merchandise at a major gaming convention in 2017, I would have laughed.

Remember that relatively common NES game you got for Christmas 25 years ago? If you never opened it, it'd be worth five times as much today!

Previously download-only indie games like Firewatch get the extra-packed physical releases they deserve, thanks to the publishers at Limited Run

And the winner of "Most interesting game title at PAX East" goes to...

Though many attendees already had a Switch, Nintendo's booth sported long line to try out Zelda and a few other titles.

The award for "Best Booth Design" goes to Crossing Souls for this play area that emulated an '80s child's bedroom.

One of the best freebies at the show were these Firewatch-themed pins.

At the C63 Industries booth, we spotted The Train Computer, a limited-edition working model train that housed a working computer playing Pixel: ru^2. Not a bad way to attract attention to your booth.

In the tabletop area, a small group was playing a life-size version of Richard Garfield's King of Tokyo.

Samsung was trying to make curved gaming monitors a thing in their booth, and the guy in the background was obviously impressed.

For $500 you could be most of the way to buying a PS4 and Xbox One, or you could play the hottest console games of 1977. Your choice. (And no, it's not actually the first home video game console)

I think the political message of this game is still a little too subtle...

The $190 Cinch Gaming controller can be customized, à la the Xbox One Pro Controller. It also can track statistics like button press rates and analog stick movement speeds with an associated smartphone app.

Most Overwatch cosplayers weren't willing to go to this level of meta-commentary.

Uh, you know the promotional balloon doesn't *have* to be as blocky and pixelated as the game itself, right?

These "mixed reality" experiences were a big new attraction at PAX East this year. They integrated green screen video with the virtual reality world in a video you could send via E-mail after you were done. This one was for the new John Wick movie.

Yeah, I'm on the show floor. Meet me by the giant skull with trippy sunglasses. No, the other one. Yeah.

Seeing the living conditions in the PAX plush zoo was a bit hard to take, to be honest...

Exhibit #56362 that a classic game's quality has no relationship to its collector's value.

You can never have too many ocarinas, I always say. No really, I say it constantly.

If only Steel Battalion's $200 controller was more popular, this kind of ten-player LAN may have been more common.

These two are obviously blown away by the amazingness that is Point Blank on the original PlayStation

Don't worry, if you fall asleep at PAX, a poster of The Wind Waker will appear to protect you.

Amid the surprisingly cold weather and lingering ice surrounding Boston's PAX East last weekend, one could see how the tenor of the show has changed over the years. At PAX East 2012, games from independent developers were relegated to a single Indie Megabooth, dwarfed by the big-name competition surrounding it. While that booth returned for 2017, the rest of the PAX show floor now seems like an outgrowth of the same idea. Dozens of indie developers outright purchased their own small tables to show off single games, while larger indie publishers like Tiny Build and Devolver Digital continue to host massive booths that rival their big-budget competitors.

Those major publishers were still at PAX East, of course, but they seemed to have less impact this year. Bethesda showed off the first playable demo of Quake Champions ahead of its upcoming beta test, and the game felt like an extension of their recent, successful Doom remake. Nintendo drew long lines for gamers eager to try out the Switch, even though many attendees already had the system in tow to make the other long lines at the show more bearable. All in all, though, the big boys seem to be ceding space at the show to tiny upstarts eager to reach their potential audience directly.

Latest Ars Video >

War Stories | Thief: The Dark Project

1998's Thief: The Dark Project was a pioneer for the stealth genre, utilizing light and shadow as essential gameplay mechanics. The very thing that Thief became so well-known for was also the game's biggest development hurdle. Looking Glass Studios founder Paul Neurath recounts the difficulties creating Thief: The Dark Project, and how its AI systems had to be completely rewritten years into development.

War Stories | Thief: The Dark Project

War Stories | Thief: The Dark Project

1998's Thief: The Dark Project was a pioneer for the stealth genre, utilizing light and shadow as essential gameplay mechanics. The very thing that Thief became so well-known for was also the game's biggest development hurdle. Looking Glass Studios founder Paul Neurath recounts the difficulties creating Thief: The Dark Project, and how its AI systems had to be completely rewritten years into development.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

26 Reader Comments

If i may be so bold... but the "crossing souls" bedroom would have been a teenagers bedroom... not a childs. since when does a child (5-12) have tower speakers?... actually, i think that it would really have been the basement

The Bally Professional Arcade (AKA Astrocade) is tragically underloved. (Though, correct, not first home console.)

I had one as a kid, and it was very cool for its time. And has genuine artificial wood trim to go with your 70's console TV. The smoked plastic top of the console lifts off, and underneath it has a little rack for storing your cartridges inside it, too!

However $500 is absurd. Nice examples can often still be found for around 1/10th that.

I don't feel the pictures convey just how packed and active the event was (including booth visuals/design). For example, my mates and I quickly realized to show up at those raffles early (about 20mins+). Take your eyes off the crowd for a few moments and it'll quickly swell to over a hundred people!

At the Newegg booth in particular, the place was swarmed as they gave away an Intel i7. The hosts ran through about ten people that Sunday before finally giving it away. Unfortunately for one guy, after his name was called he shot his hand up and tried to get to the front but there were too many people in front of him. The hosts moved onto the next guy, and eventually a winner was found.

Glad I won some merchandise myself, too. A lot of foul play went on that weekend, and hearing your name called after trekking around for a scavenger hunt (of all things) felt very satisfying.

Glad to see you managed to insert some leftist hate into the story. Way to go for tolerance (of course this is Boston, a bastion of a-holes)

BTW, hammer Mario needs to make a comeback... PLEASE!

Can't even go to a fucking video games conference anymore without politics being injected.

Hear, hear! I mean, who ever heard of politics having anything to do with video games? When I want to escape politics, I turn to video games like Papers Please, Tropico, Assassin's Creed, Civilization, Crusader Kings, Democracy, Syndicate, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, Napoleon: Total War, Civilization, Victoria 2, Europa Universalis, Bioshock, Deus Ex, and Metro 2033. If any of those games ever introduced politics I don't know what I'd do!

Glad to see you managed to insert some leftist hate into the story. Way to go for tolerance (of course this is Boston, a bastion of a-holes)

BTW, hammer Mario needs to make a comeback... PLEASE!

Can't even go to a fucking video games conference anymore without politics being injected.

Hear, hear! I mean, who ever heard of politics having anything to do with video games? When I want to escape politics, I turn to video games like Papers Please, Tropico, Assassin's Creed, Civilization, Crusader Kings, Democracy, Syndicate, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, Napoleon: Total War, Civilization, Victoria 2, Europa Universalis, Bioshock, Deus Ex, and Metro 2033. If any of those games ever introduced politics I don't know what I'd do!

At least we can all be thankful that art has historically been free of social and political commentary.

If you guys need a photographer for northeast US tech events, I'm available. Looking at these images of PAX East 2017 it appears you guys need some improvement. I would imagine an event like this should get more qualified coverage.

If you guys need a photographer for northeast US tech events, I'm available. Looking at these images of PAX East 2017 it appears you guys need some improvement. I would imagine an event like this should get more qualified coverage.

it does seem strange the events they do cover.

I mean, they keep ignoring Dragoncon, despite it having dedicated tracks for Space, Science, law/technology, robotics, podcasting, AS WELL as the costumes, and gaming of somewhere like PAX.

Not many other events can boast a major cities largest parade, everything from homebuilt nuclear reactors to airship races, and the longest running robotic combat event, all with guests like Bruce Schneier, Niantic, Bill Shatner, and Rep. John Lewis. (that was some of 2012's 400 guests+professionals)

I'd be curious to know how large the old used video game market is. My roomate a few weeks ago spent $400 on a single snes game that we won't ever play, and I think $1200 in that single trip. I think a drug habit is cheaper.

If you guys need a photographer for northeast US tech events, I'm available. Looking at these images of PAX East 2017 it appears you guys need some improvement. I would imagine an event like this should get more qualified coverage.

I took pictures, and have looked at many other pics and vids of the event, and, honestly, they are all horrible in the context of "capturing the atmosphere" of the show. If you showed up with a good tele lens, you could maybe get some interesting shots scoped from afar--altho the light levels are kinda low.

I find all my pictures of things that aren't either a) the whole expo hall, or b) a closeup of someone/something, look like photos of a mix of normal and cosplaying folks in line at the DMV (RMV here in MA!) waiting to renew their licenses. There's no style or decor, and the only organization is queues.

That said, I have to wonder what camera Kyle was using with that ghastly flash.

If you guys need a photographer for northeast US tech events, I'm available. Looking at these images of PAX East 2017 it appears you guys need some improvement. I would imagine an event like this should get more qualified coverage.

I took pictures, and have looked at many other pics and vids of the event, and, honestly, they are all horrible in the context of "capturing the atmosphere" of the show. If you showed up with a good tele lens, you could maybe get some interesting shots scoped from afar--altho the light levels are kinda low.

I find all my pictures of things that aren't either a) the whole expo hall, or b) a closeup of someone/something, look like photos of a mix of normal and cosplaying folks in line at the DMV (RMV here in MA!) waiting to renew their licenses. There's no style or decor, and the only organization is queues.

That said, I have to wonder what camera Kyle was using with that ghastly flash.

The Twitch Prime Lounge was a good place to catch some good "PAX atmosphere" shots this year. I only snapped a couple of shots, mostly because it was mid-afternoon on Saturday and we went into the lounge to crash for a while. Getting a bunch of great pictures wasn't as much of a priority as sitting on a comfortable couch for a few minutes.

MAGFestMy favorite costumes were seeing Magnet Man and Magneto duking it out. Neither won... they cancelled each other out, but still, a nice photo op for many.

Anime Expo (in Chicago)Next was holding Cloud Strife's sword from the Final Fantasy game. It took the guy one month to make, and was definitely a 2-handed sword unless you were resting it on your body the correct way!

If you guys need a photographer for northeast US tech events, I'm available. Looking at these images of PAX East 2017 it appears you guys need some improvement. I would imagine an event like this should get more qualified coverage.

I took pictures, and have looked at many other pics and vids of the event, and, honestly, they are all horrible in the context of "capturing the atmosphere" of the show. If you showed up with a good tele lens, you could maybe get some interesting shots scoped from afar--altho the light levels are kinda low.

I find all my pictures of things that aren't either a) the whole expo hall, or b) a closeup of someone/something, look like photos of a mix of normal and cosplaying folks in line at the DMV (RMV here in MA!) waiting to renew their licenses. There's no style or decor, and the only organization is queues.

That said, I have to wonder what camera Kyle was using with that ghastly flash.

Abysmal lighting is the norm in events like this, true - but it's nothing a little creativity and post-production can't fix. Disregarding the photographic quality of these images, they don't tell a story either. I get no sense of what the event was about. As with Kyle's camera - I bet it was set on auto, by the looks of it.